Episode 154

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Published on:

20th May 2025

Why 1 in 3 Job Skills Are Already Obsolete (And What HR Must Do Now) | Cole Napper

This episode is sponsored by ‘Deel: Your Forever People Platform’.

Managing a global team is complex. Deel makes it simpler with payroll, HR, IT, and compliance—all in one place. That’s why over 35,000 businesses trust Deel to hire, pay, and manage teams worldwide.

See how Deel works: https://www.deel.com/nickday/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=nickday&utm_campaign=emea-t1a-gb_aware_branding_nickday_podcast_hr-nickday-h125_all_all&utm_content=aware_all_podcast_hr-preroll-h125script_en

What if one-third of the skills in your job description are already outdated?

In this episode, Nick Day sits down with Cole Napper, VP at Lightcast, to explore how AI, shifting demographics, and rapid skill disruption are reshaping the workforce. They dive into what HR and L&D leaders must do now to stay ahead, why degrees are losing ground to skills, and how proactive companies are gaining the upper hand.

If you’re serious about future-proofing your talent strategy, this conversation is essential.


Connect with Nick Day: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/

Connect with Cole Napper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colenapper


Find your ideal candidate with our job vacancy system: https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/919cf6b9ea


Sign up to the HR L&D Newsletter - https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/23e7b153e7



Resources:

The Rising Storm Report: https://lightcast.io/resources/research/the-rising-storm

The Speed of Skill Change Report: https://lightcast.io/resources/research/speed-of-skill-change

The Risk Outlook Reporthttps://lightcast.io/why-lightcast/risk-outlook


Thanks for listening folks – I look forward to bringing you the next episode of the HR L&D Podcast real soon!


(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:29) Skill Change Since 2021

(05:58) The AI Job Boom

(07:13) Green & Cyber Skills Rise

(08:25) STEM Disruption Explained

(11:20) Trade Skills in Decline

(13:17) Rethinking Workforce Strategy

(15:53) Degrees vs Vocational Paths

(18:52) Skills vs Credentials

(21:50) Cutting Through Talent Noise

(23:39) Two Labor Markets

(25:01) Smarter Job Descriptions

(27:29) Why Workers Fear AI

(30:56) Building Learning Cultures

(33:43) Workforce Risk Outlook

(36:11) Industries Most at Risk

(39:51) How Lightcast Helps

(42:18) Cole’s Bold Prediction

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About the Podcast

The HR L&D Podcast
Leadership, recruitment, culture. Conversations with HR's best
HR gets handed the problems nobody else wants to own. The restructure, the grievance, the engagement survey that came back badly. And then gets asked why people are leaving.

I'm Nick Day. I run an HR recruitment agency, which means I spend most of my week on the phone to HR directors, HR leaders and people leaders talking about what the job is actually like rather than what's written on the job spec. This HR Podcast came out of those calls. I kept hearing things worth repeating, and nobody was repeating them.

Every week I sit down with HR leaders, chief people officers, L&D specialists and the occasional academic who has changed how I think about work and people engagement. We get into leadership, and what happens when someone brilliant at the technical side gets promoted into managing humans.

Employee engagement past the survey score. Diversity, equity and inclusion in a climate where saying those words out loud has become a decision in itself. Pay transparency, talent management, reducing bias in hiring, HR digital transformation and the HCM systems everyone is being sold. And of course we cannot forget HR AI tools and platforms that are flooding the landscape as AI in HR becomes a hot topic every people leader is keen to understand and leverage.

Wellbeing comes up constantly, and it usually turns into the same question. Who looks after the HR team.

I'm not an HR practitioner and I don't pretend to be. I'm the person who hires them, which puts me in a useful position. I get to ask the obvious question that everyone in the room already knows the answer to and nobody says.

No script and no polite version. Mostly it's the conversation you'd have with someone doing your job at a different company, if you ever got the chance to sit down with them.

If you work in HR, people management or L&D, or you're building a career in it, start by subscribing to The HR L&D Podcast. We have had guests including Stephen Covey, Alan Stein Jnr, Andrea Wareham and Dr. Thom Mayer among other HR Leaders who are shaping the future of work and leadership.

Need HR staff? I run JGA Recruitment, an HR and payroll recruitment agency. www.jgarecruitment.com or info@jgarecruitment.com

Want to be on the show? Nick@jgadigital.com

If payroll is closer to your world, I also host The Payroll Podcast, the most listened to payroll show in the world.

Topics include HR leadership, workplace culture, retention, people management, employee engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI strategy, AI for HR, AI recruitment tools, talent management, HR digital transformation, HCM, staff wellbeing, pay transparency, reducing bias, L&D and HR recruitment.

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Nick Day